Twenty years ago, charter school advocates in Michigan promoted independent public schools on two premises: that they would provide quality options for parents in places like Detroit — where the public school system was, even then, abysmal — and that they would introduce competition into the educational marketplace that would force old-line public schools to get better or face closure.

Today? Neither pledge has come true. In fact, neither is even a reasonable pipe dream, because Michigan’s charter law enforces little or no quality control over charter schools. The last two decades have been a raw and unregulated experiment on Michigan children with no accountability for academic performance or the spending of public money.

It’s a laissez-faire free-for-all that is sacrificing children in the name of “innovation” and “choice.” And the saddest part? There’s barely a whisper in Lansing about doing any better.

A Free Press series that begins today lays out the scope and shape of the state’s charter school mess.

There were 12 charter schools the first year the state law governing them was passed; today, there are about 370. Statewide, 38% of all Michigan charter schools that are ranked fall below the 25th percentile, meaning at least 75% of all Michigan schools perform better.

Meanwhile, there’s little effort to hold them accountable. Nearly two-thirds of the charter schools that have been open for more than a decade are in the bottom half of the state’s school rankings, and state law is not demanding that they get better or be shuttered. They’re also largely reticent even to say how they spend their money, while a whopping 60% of them are run by companies that take public dollars to operate on a for-profit basis.

And most public schools are no better than they were in 1994. In the districts with the most charters, like Detroit, the principal effect has been to siphon money away from old-line public schools, fueling their decline and ongoing financial troubles. All we’ve done is create dual school systems — both awful, one near totally unmanaged.

I remember distinctly, in 1993, then-Gov. John Engler’s impassioned push to break the public school “stranglehold” on education, to create a marketplace of schools where competition and innovation would raise the standards for schools and increase the value for students and parents.

The Free Press editorial board tentatively bought in (I was a young staffer back then), largely out of exasperation with the poor quality and mismanagement of schools in places like Detroit. Introducing quality choice in struggling areas, we surmised, would be good for parents. And competition can raise standards — when it’s managed competition.

But that could have happened only within a system of reasonable standards and accountability. Charters could deliver on their promise only if they were required to answer for their performance and face consequences for long-term failures.

Other states do that. Michigan didn’t, and instead opened the floodgates for low-performing charter schools. Adding insult to injury, the state Legislature wiped away the cap on the total number of charter schools three years ago, removing the last semblance of a barrier to protect Michigan children from any scurrilous operators.

There’s no way to justify that, not when what’s at stake — the education of our children — is so vital and precious.

The most enthusiastic charter advocates rationalize their unregulated nature by hailing the idea of the marketplace as self-regulating. Bad schools will eventually close because they have no customers, they say.

But this doesn’t take into account that in the education marketplace, some customers don’t have the same kinds of choices that are an intrinsic part of the free-market model — some people are trapped, because of poverty and isolation, in places where all the choices are bad.

But ideology is a dangerous intoxicant when it comes to schools, because using schools as proof of free-market principles doesn’t account for children whose future success is largely determined by the quality of public education. This shouldn’t be about theory or ideology. What matters are results, and there’s no way to ensure them without basic quality control. In Michigan, the law basically makes it easier to close a puppy mill than to shutter a lousy charter school.

I’d rather not think about how that defines our priorities and sensibilities.

And yet, I’m far from ready to throw in the towel on Michigan’s charter schools. Truth is, when charters are done well, they work, and I’ve seen it firsthand.

My children attend a charter school in Detroit whose high performance, systematized accountability and dedication to excellence are a shining testament to potential. The school’s operators wouldn’t tolerate low performance; the community of parents wouldn’t either.

But those ingredients — high standards, rapt accountability — are internally driven, because the state doesn’t require them. And our school is an astounding exception to Michigan’s charter norm of mediocrity, or worse.

The point is that I chose our school because it’s good, and it’s good because of the standards it embraces and upholds.

If every charter were held to the same standard, by the state that authorizes and funds them, independent public schools might fulfill the promise they made back in 1994. As is so common in Michigan, we could be so much further ahead if we executed as well as we dream or create.

As it is, the charter failure is a mocking sign of our own negligence. The state’s kids are the victims.